The Star and the Column
by codynash
Summary: A Harry Potter thing set after the books with some original characters. Maybe it's sexy or funny enough to read! Transfer student, incompetent staff, gay themes, etc.


**The Star and the Column**

**This is my first anything, really. I've got original characters here in conjunction with JKRowling's. If you've read any HP, you should know which ones are hers. This is a story set after the canon, obviously. It's yaoi-ish and it might become smexual. I don't know. Tell me if it's good/intriguing/shite and I'll post moar.**

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-Chapter One-

Things were proceeding in the Great Hall with much the same regularity as they had for the past thousand-odd years. Candles twinkled above the four long tables without any interference from gravity, the night sky shone through the rafters and, more improbably, through the ceiling, and the students seated beneath this illuminated spectacle were chattering merrily as the thousands before them had for centuries.

The subject of the students' chatter was unanimously on the School Event. The School Event is a curious phenomenon that occurs almost exclusively amidst school children left to their own devices. Quite simply, the School Event is whatever large happening the school has arranged that year, whether it be the Triwizard Tournament (which had become more regular in the years since its re-instatement) or perhaps a strange collective fear that one student would have to battle a giant snake beneath the school in the second term.

This year the School Event was… But that's a bit too soon. We'll come back to that in a moment. The students continued their persiflage while at the fifth long table (that ran perpendicular to the house tables) the teachers were uncharacteristically taciturn. Professor Longbottom bent low, very low, to inquire where the headmaster was from Professor Flitwick. Flitwick, slightly deaf from a lifetime of instructing young people shouted "What!?" back and patted his stomach irritably.

"I said, where is the headmaster?"

"Damned if I know," grumbled Flitwick, who in his old age had developed a slight predilection for swearing.

It was an unfortunate lull in conversation following this that caused to students below to begin wondering the same question. The students familiar with the headmaster were all of the considerably unfair opinion that the current headmaster was horrible at his job, particularly since the Sorting and the welcoming feast would not begin without the headmaster.

To be honest, Professor Boniface Alacrity was indeed a terrible headmaster. He had no skill at administration, educational instruction, or (as evidenced by his current predicament) keeping schedules. Presently, Professor Alacrity was bolting down a staircase on the way to the great hall. He had in the course of his four years at Hogwarts foregone learning the locations of trick steps and secret shortcuts and as a result had caught his foot twice, tripped once and at one point completely forgotten where he was.

Despite his mediocre tenure as a student in Hogwarts, Alacrity was selected as interim headmaster when his predecessor Minerva McGonagall stepped down to pursue retirement amidst considerable outcry. Because an uncle, Sebastien Alacrity, had moderate pull in the Ministry, his nephew Boniface had been given what was assured to him to be a temporary position administrating the famous school of witchcraft and wizardry. Subsequent failures to file adequate paperwork had resulted in his spending four years at Hogwarts without a replacement. Of course the parents had complained when their children regularly came home for Christmas and Easter with burns or interesting new colors, but who was going to file the necessary paperwork was what the Ministry wanted to know.

Figures in portraits and hollow voices from suits of armor giggled as he fled past them. Finally reaching the great hall's great pair of double doors, he stooped over his knees and wheezed. He righted his pointed hat and pushed ineffectually at the doors for a few seconds before they took the hint and swung forward of their own accord.

Now in the glare of candlelight he straightened up and strode to the high table. He turned to face the assembled body and gestured vaguely out of the hall. After a few seconds, a line of small children shambled into the hall, led by the relatively new Transfiguration teacher and deputy headmaster, Hector Mirabilis who was carrying a stool and a hat that had seen considerable wear.

"Let the Sorting," began the headmaster before taking a long dramatic pause, "begin!"

The hat was set on the stool and it began to speak. It was a few moments before Professor Mirabilis realized the hat was reciting a soliloquy from Hamlet, after which he shook the hat until it started to sing. The hat, it seemed, had also gotten a bit off in its advanced age. The hat's song was relatively upbeat and ended to tremendous applause from everyone except the first years who were either too frightened to speak or too drowsy after waiting in the atrium for the headmaster.

One by one, the children were pushed toward the hat and sorted into a house. Gryffindors and Slytherins bellowed for their incumbents and Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws smiled meekly or applauded for theirs. At last the Sorting was complete and the headmaster returned to declaratory mode.

"Excellent, excellent. Now! before we begin the feast, we have one more student to sort. Please come inside, Mr. Forster."

The students who were aware of this all smiled smugly to the ones who did not understand, but they all craned heads to get a better view. After a second, a tall figure stepped into view and walked the path up to the stool.

"Mr. Lucas Forster is a student from the Texas Secondary School of Magic, one of the largest magical schools in North America. He has gladly agreed to join us at Hogwarts for his seventh and final year of magical education. I hope you will all join me in…, um. Welcoming him." Professor Alacrity nervously concluded his speech with a vague sweeping gesture of the arms.

Few had heard him. Standing before the Sorting Hat was a tall boy with brown curls, bright blue eyes and a vacant, almost somnolent expression on his face. Some were wondering why he looked so disinterested. Some were offended by the mere sight of him. Some were turning the name lovingly over in their minds. And still some others were turning the phrase 'Texas Secondary School' over in their minds and wondering where his boots and spurs were.

Over at the Gryffindor table, a Slytherin girl (who had sneaked over during the Sorting) tapped a friend on the arm.

"Not half bad, is he?" she whispered into her friend's ear.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he whispered back.

"Don't be such a prat Eddie, I saw you ogling the goods."

"If you don't shut it, I swear to God I'll jinx you on fire."

Christine smiled to herself. Edmond Page had been her best friend for all her six years at Hogwarts. Their friendship had withstood insults, scuffles, jinxes, hexes and even being sorted into different houses, and it would withstand even this denial of his obvious attraction.

The new boy turned round to face the student body and sat on the stool as Mirabilis held the hat above his head. His arm moved a fraction of a fraction of an inch downward toward his head when the hat wriggled and bellowed "RAVENCLAW!" The table at the far end of the hall had a strange mix of claps and choking noises played against a background of utter silence. Over with the Gryffindors, Christine Quickly patted her friend on the shoulder.

"Well, maybe you'll have him in some classes," she said with a grin that could be heard for miles. "Still, even if he is straight, there's nothing wrong with eye candy, is there?"

The headmaster's conclusive speeches were rarely listened to. This year's, however, was barely four seconds long. It was interrupted when Ms. Quickly darted out of the hall swearing, her robes dancing with magical blue flames.


End file.
